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nice guide. some points.
- about the skills
"So to my knowledge, the slayer has the highest amount of skills amongst all FULL bab classes"
people keep forging about the ranger (6+int skill too, a parent class of this hybrid class).
- archtype - bounty hunter. you mixed medium armor and heavy armor, slyer never get heavy armor to lose it for this archtype.
- multi classing, Vivisectionist, do to the wording of this class's sneak attack. taking one level of it will let you count your total character level as your rogue level for sneak attack. which should bump up your sneak attack even if the other 19 levels are slayer. (from 6d6 to 10d6)
" If a character already has sneak attack from another class, the levels from the classes that grant sneak attack stack to determine the effective rogue level for the sneak attack’s extra damage dice"
do notice it's cheesy as hell and most gm would just say you add your total given sneak attack dice rather then do it this way.
- feats : Vital Strike, (also butchering axe, need 19 str to avoid penalty). add a human\half elf\ half orc with racial heritage (ogre) and he can take savage critical (look also need 19 str. good thing your already built for it!) which let him auto add his sneak attack whenever he uses vital strike (gm might be stingy and say no for improved or greater vital strike, ask before hand). no need to pay attention to flat footed or flanking with this baby. standard action for 6d6+sneak attack (+str\power attack etc etc)
- feats: Flensing Strike - just wanted to add that the rogue in our rise of the runelords run was an mvp for getting all the last books 'super high ac giants' into kiddy play targets with this feat. really nice at high levels. (+16 nat ac? what +16?).
- feats , leadership. it's been my crusade so far to re-educate people to start reading the words that are printed and not twist them into what they would like them to say.
to wit : leadership make the player attract npc who assist him. NPC by definition are NON player characters. in other words you don't get a 2nd character sheet. as you don't get control over the npc cohorts or followers anymore then you get control over the npc king or baker (with out direct controlling magic that is). nowhere in the feat description does it even imply that the player has control over these npc.
any gm who let the player control his cohorts and more so decide how their character levels\class abilities\\feats are built and how their wealth is spent deserve what he gets for ignoring the rules...
for me, i let the player call out a job hunt - as in he can set up for a paladin\ healer\ magic item crafter job application. Then people applying for the job will show up. the more detailed his specific job is the harder it is to find the right person. you look for a human paladin, you can get one fast. you look for an elven archer who uses a hornbow and got the warning shot feat and spent most of his cash for an arrow of death? you might need to wait a bit till that cohort show up, if ever.
Asked around on reddit, figured it needed an update, here is everything I could think of to say, lets do it!
The Art of Omnicide: Iluzry's Guide to the Pathfinder Slayer
I definitely plan to get around to this as soon as I get done reviewing your Paladin/Antipaladin guide (slowed by this time of pestilence, and before I started that I didn't bargain for how much I DIDN'T know about Paladin/Antipaladin spells and needed to learn).
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The Slayer talents are horrible. The 2 exceptions are ranger combat style and rogue talent (only choose 1 is so sad)
The advanced talents are a bit better, but advanced rogue talents/master Ninja talents are fantastic in comparison.
And you get a talent every 2 levels. Why did paizo not support that better? The best “Slayer talents” are rogue or ninja talents or ranger combat style feats?
Anyway im sorry for my rant and thank you for your guide.
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You can take the rogue talent multiple times. It says so.
Also blood reader is pretty decent, but may be story breaking.
btw style feats - elemental, while the OP find it somewhat lacking, in the right build it's great. heaving lightening stance at level 6 without the requirements instead of minimum 11th is very nice.
A while ago i posted a build (that funny enough also included the above mentioned half elf with ogre racial heritage, butchering axe and savage critical). it need 2 levels of rogue (or getting the GM to let you take a specific rogue talent with the slayer's even though it's not on the list). but with it one can not only get the 50% miss chance from lightning stance but also attack with savage critical in the same round. (so vital strike with butchering axe and sneak attack all in one)
so just saying even the elemental style feats can be useful in the right way.
Just got done with the Paladin/Antipaladin guide, so this one is next!
Okay, finally getting around to the Slayer guide. An updated one has been needed for a long time! (And only one seemed to be available at all until this one came out, apparently dated 2015, although the Guide to the Guides doesn't always note later updates . . . speaking of which, it doesn't have a link to this guide yet.)
Class Overview: The Chassis: Class Skills Worth Paying attention to: Heal -- it isn't just for healing (although it's good for that too), but for getting an idea of what condition somebody is in, including whether they have had something . . . implanted.
Class Overview: Class Features: Track and Swift Tracker -- really, you never need to track something down, or to determine how many creatures they are allied with? At least rate it Orange (2/5).
Class Overview: Class Features: Slayer's Advance: The extremely limited uses per day really hurts this.
Roles and Ability Scores: Add Switch Hitter (I am stealing this from some Ranger guide or mini-guide that I can't remember the name for). Basically like building for Archery, but you invest a modicum more in Strength (Dexterity still first), and you get Power Attack and carry a Greatsword (or if you are an Elf, Half-Elf, Human, or Tengu, you can get Weapon Finesse and use an Elven Curved Blade -- slightly less damage and costs another feat, but you get to key your accuracy off your higher Dexterity).
Roles and Ability Scores: Wisdom is needed for both your Will Save and your Perception, so don't dump that. You may be able to live without much Wisdom, but your party might not.
Races: Dwarf. Dwarves deserve a bump up for their standard Hardy trait (which you can bump up with Steel Soul), which combines with the Wisdom bonus to more than make up for Slayer's poor Will Save at all but the highest levels. Honorable mention goes to the Unstoppable alternate trait, which gives you Toughness + half of Great Fortitude. The Constitution bonus is very nice to have, as is Darkvision. Stability is very nice to have, especially if you are going to try to Trip and have to worry about the tables being turned on a failed attempt. Trade-out baits: Defensive Training (unless you are in a campaign against a lot of Giants), Greed, Hatred (unless you are in a campaign against Goblinoids or Orcs), and possibly Weapon Familiarity (although it does give some nice options).
Races: Elf. Constitution penalty hurts, but Elven Immunities giving a +2 bonus vs Enchantment effects is nice to have on a class that has a poor Will Save (not as good as what Dwarves get, though); Elven Weapon Familiarity is actually nice to have to give you some melee options not easily available to others, and is good to have on a switch-hitter. Keen Senses giving +2 to Perception is very nice. Trade out Elven Magic (which you won't be using) for something else -- Fey-Sighted for constant Detect Magic is a good choice, but if you are up against a lot of Demons or Fey, Vigilant becomes attractive. If you need Skill Focus and are willing to trade out Weapon Familiarity (which is nice but not essential), be Human-Raised. You can replace Low-Light Vision with Darkvision. Other attractive trades for Weapon Familiarity are Fey Thoughts (more class skills), Long-Limbed (35 foot movement speed), and Shadowhunter (give you a fighting chance against Incorporeals). Favored Class Bonus gives you a slowly scaling bonus on Studied Target Bonus on Perception and Survival checks, and eventually to Stealth, but it takes a long time to come online.
Races: Half-Elf. Keen Senses and Elven Immunities are good on Half-Elves just like on Elves, but Half-Elves have no Constitution penalty. If you need a Skill Focus, they have it. If you don't, you can get proficiency with an Elven Curve Blade for switch-hitting (note that Half-Elf has 2 ways to do this -- choose Weapon Familiarity to get the full Elven Weapon Familiarity, unless you want something not covered by that), or you can get Dual-Minded, which is equal to Iron Will, except that it stacks with actual Iron Will, which is nice for making up for Slayer's poor Will Save. If you aren't multiclassing (and maybe even if you are), trade out Multitalented for Blended View (Darkvision without losing Low-Light Vision) or Fey Thoughts (more class skills). The Favored Class Bonus gives a fairly rapidly scaling bonus to Feint and Gather Information, so you might be able to get good use out of it; you also have access to the Elf and Human Favored Class Bonuses, but those give results much more slowly.
Races: Halfling. Keen Senses is good just like it is on Elves. Halfling Luck and Fearless are good for partially compensating for Slayer's poor Will Save. Whatever you do, replace Sure-Footed with Fleet of Foot to get 30 foot speed and not with anything else, unless you are doing a lot of sniping, in which case you could consider Swift as Shadows. Trade out Weapon Familiarity for Shadowhunter (give you a fighting chance against Incorporeals). Favored class bonus is a slowly scaling AC bonus against your Studied Target(s).
Races: Half-Orc. Yes we do love these. Darkvision is nice to have. If you are doing Intimidation, even on the side, Intimidating is nice to have, but if you aren't, you can trade it out to get extended-range Darkvision; or if you need Endurance, you can trade out Intimidating for it. Trading out both Intimidating and Orc Ferocity for Plagueborn gets you +2 on Saves against becoming Sickened or Nauseated. If you are into Bluff, Diplomacy, and Sense Motive, tradking out both of these and Weapon Familiarity gets you Overlooked Mastermind, which is +2 on all of these. Trading out Orc Ferocity could get you extended-range Darkvision while keeping Intimidating (but not as extended-range as if you traded out Intimidating for it); or it can get you proficiency with Whips and Nets (Beastmaster). Trading out both Weapon Familiarity and Orc Ferocity gets you an extra skill point per level (Human-Raised). You can trade out Weapon Familiarity for proficiency with Dire Flails and Spiked Chains (Chain Fighter) or for proficiency with Whips and +2 on Knowledge (Local) (City-Raised), or for Fey Thoughts (more class skills), or for Shadwohunter (give you a fighting chance against Incorporeals). If you need Whip proficiency and you can't make one of the above trades to get it, the Caravan Drover trait will get it for you. If you invest a little bit in Wisdom and spend a feat, you can get Keen Scent. Favored Class Bonus is a moderately scaling bonus on Critical confirmation when using Sneak Attack -- not great unless you are really investing in both Sneak Attack and Criticals, and even then it doesn't stack with other enhancers like Critical Focus.
Races: Human. The Human Bonus Feat is very nice out of the box, but it also has some excellent trade-out options, some of which give you a good fixed bonus feat as part of the exchange. If you want Elven or Dwarven Weapon Familiarity but don't want the Elven Constitution penalty, Adoptive Parentage (Dwarf or Elf) will get it for you (technically, this also works with other races, but Dwarf and Elf are the ones where it is really worthwhile, unless a friendly GM agrees that it also works on Tengu's Swordtrained trait, which is also worthwile); if you want a couple of Exotic weapons not covered by those options, Military Tradition will get them for you -- either way, this is better than using the Human Bonus Feat for Exotic Weapon Proficiency. Other good Human Bonus Feat tradeout options are Eye for Talent (+2 on Sense Motive and +2 on an ability score for an animal companion, bonded mount, cohort, or familiar); Focused Study (bonus Skill Focus at 1st, 8th, and 16th level); Mixed Heritage (if you need a second "Heart of the" alternate trait -- see below); Powerful Presence (get Persuasive and count your Charisma as 2 higher than it is for qualifying for feats such as the Eldritch Heritage feat chain); Self-Made Fate (+2 against divine spells and the spells and spell-like abilities of many Outsiders); Shadowhunter (better the version that others get -- not only gives you a fighting chance against Incorporeals, but also gives you Iron Will for partial compensation for Slayer's poor Will Save). If you manage to get enough skill points per level without the Human bonus skill point per level (Skilled), you can trade that out for Fey Magic (spell-like abilities usable in limited circumstances) + Fey Thoughts (more class skills) + Low-Light Vision; or you can trade it out for a "Heart of the" alternate trait (Heart of the Slums, Heart of the Streets, and Heart of the Wilderness are good generally, and Heart of the Sea, Heart of the Snows, and Heart of the Sun are good for certain campaigns). If you are investing in Sense Motive (as you should as a Slayer), you can trade out the Human bonus skill point per level for Imposter-Wary, which gives you back all the skill points as Sense Motive points and gives you +2 on Saves against Illusions. The Favored Class Bonus gets you a very slowly scaling increase in your number of Slayer Talents; note that officially you can't start using Favored Class Bonuses that give you class features such as Class Talents until your class level gives you at least one.
Slayer Talents: Blood Reader -- this is so good it should be an Advanced Slayer Talent.
Slayer Talents: Trapfinding -- I may be biased by old-school dungeons that have lots of traps (and by the magical trap early in Shattered Star, although you won't get this online fast enough for that), but I think Trapfinding is actually good in reasonably common situations unless you are in a campaign that has NO dungeons, and I get really irritated at the huge number of Rogue archetypes that trade it out (although this is partly because it makes them incompatible with each other). I would rate this Green (3/5) -- not everybody needs it, but if you need it, you need it bad.
Ranger Combat Styles: Two Handed -- Red (1/5). You can go for some other Ranger Combat Style and just get Power Attack with a normal feat (or with Combat Trick), since it's pretty easy to get Strength 13 if you aren't Small) to cover this.
Ranger Combat Styles: Weapon and Shield -- the standouts here are Two-Weapon Fighting (self-explanatory) and Shield Slam, which is a HUGE action economy buff to Bull Rushing. That said, beware of the size limitations on Bull Rushing -- you will need to spend some feats not covered by this Ranger Combat Style to partially overcome these.
Faithful Combat Styles: Besmara -- typo "fient" should be "feint".
Faithful Combat Styles: Desna -- typo "PERCISE" should be "PRECISE".
Rogue Talents: Finesse Rogue -- this isn't bad, but if you have a non-negative (especially if positive) Charisma modifier, it's competing with a dip in Swashbuckler.
Next: Archetypes.
And now for more Slayer guide reviewing:
Archetypes: Vanguard -- this archetype's Tactician falls behind Cavalier's Tactician, because not only do you have to spend Slayer Talents to gain more uses per day (it starts at 1), but they don't even give you another Teamwork Feat. Orange (2/5) -- would be Green (3/5) if Vanguard's Tactician gave you another Teamwork Feat every time you invested another Slayer Talent in it (would need to have a limit on how often you can take it, but even if you used every Slayer Talent for this it still wouldn't be as brokenly overpowered as Holy Tactician Paladin).
Archetypes: Stygian Slayer -- this is the first good Sneak Attack focusing archetype. Hurt by being more squishy than the standard Slayer without actually gaining more Sneak Attack dice, but the spell trigger/completion item use (which is for all Wizard Illusion spells of the 1st 4 levels, not all arcane Illusion spells of the 1st 4 levels). The Invisibility ability is hurt by limited uses per day and later hurt by enemies that have True Seeing (and for that matter, in the mid levels by enemies that have See Invisibility or Glitterdust).
Archetypes: Sczarni Executioner (labeled as Executioner in the guide) -- typo "you entirely build may fail"?
Archetypes: Sniper -- the Deadly Sniper ability appears intended to replace the Slayer Talent gained at 2nd level, and the archetype table on the www.d20pfsrd.com Slayer page even indicates this, but the text in both the www.d20pfsrd.com Sniper page and the Archives of Nethys Sniper page does not say that Deadly Sniper replaces anything. I suspect that this is an oversight. With this oversight, this archetype gets a major boost in getting its Ranged Ranger Combat Style online early; even with a hypothetical Errata to this oversight, it's still pretty good except for a weakness in the first handful of levels.
Archetypes: Ankou's Shadow -- while it might be not very wise to build a Slayer to rely too heavily on Sneak Attack, if you want to do that, this is the second of the two archetypes for it. Trade out Studied Target (this really hurts) for unlimited uses of what is effectively Mirror Image, but after the earliest levels your shadowy Mirror Image stand-ins (Shadow Doubles) can flank for you (and eventually do other stuff), and later on you trade out Stalker for the ability to See Invisibility. Green (3/5) -- would have been much better, but your Shadow Doubles don't improve your action economy. This archetype does better than Stygian Slayer against enemies who have True Seeing (they can see the Shadow Doubles for what they are, but apparently this doesn't save them from being Flanked -- maybe an oversight?).
Archetypes: Add Bloody Jake. It's not actually a very good archetype (in fact it's pretty bad), but I just had to mention it because Deliverance.
Archetypes: Add Spirit Slayer -- not everyone needs this, but if you need to fight Incorporeals and Possessing types, you need it bad. Only trades out Stalker and a Slayer Talent for what it gives you (including some normally unavailable Slayer Talents), so you won't be hosed if the campaign goes for long stretches lacking Incorporeal enemies. Too bad the abilities that let you attack Incorporeal creatures without a Ghost Touch weapon come online so late.
Prestige Classes: Add Halfling Opportunist -- you want the 5th level ability (it's a 5 level prestige class) Opportunity Attacker: ALL of your Attacks of Opportunity become Sneak Attacks. Better on a Rogue or Ninja, but still good on a Slayer . . . if you are a Halfling.
General Feats: Accomplished Sneak Attacker -- this might be useful at the low levels, but unless you're really going all-in on Sneak Attack, I wouldn't recommend it. It's mainly a feat tax for Arcane Tricksters minimizing their levels spent on their Sneak Attack class, and Slayer isn't the class for that. Orange (2/5).
Combat Feats: Dirty Fighting -- if you are doing Combat Maneuvers whose Improved Combat Maneuver feats require (Orange 2/5 feat tax) Combat Expertise, you want Dirty Fighting. It lets you off the hook for Combat Expertise for these feats (unfortunately not for all feats that have it as a prerequisite), and it makes them better, and gives you a cheapo version of them if you don't have them yet. You want Dirty Fighting. Blue (4/5) to Purple (5/5), depending upon how much you are investing in Combat Maneuvers.
Dirty Trick Feats: Dirty Tricks Guide -- but they forgot to mention Magus (which isn't particularly relevant here) and the Halfling Opportunist prestige class, which potentially is.
Finished! (Sorry, I don't have a sample build at this time.)
Good to have some free slayer-type guide-stuff out there for PF1e, IluzryMage. ;)
Great guide I loved it. :)
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I just used this guide to help theory craft a pc I might be playing. Again I have to say great guide. Love your guides they are so fun to read.